


Charlie Weasley and the Dragons of Texas

by Notawiseacre



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (By the bad guy), American Magical Culture, Aromantic Asexual Charlie Weasley, Aromantic Charlie Weasley, Asexual Character, Asexual Charlie Weasley, Brownies, Charlie Weasley-centric, Curandera, Curanderismo, Dragons, Fantastic Racism, Fearsome Critters, Fix-It, Gen, Good Brother Charlie Weasley, Good Uncle Charlie Weasley, House Elves, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Knitting, Nahuales, Post-Canon, Racism, Reference to Historical Racism, Texan Magical Culture, Texas, Were-Creatures, Werejaguars
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:20:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 16,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25000801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Notawiseacre/pseuds/Notawiseacre
Summary: Noted dragonologist Charlie Weasley goes to Texas, to study the dragons there.
Comments: 33
Kudos: 43





	1. A Dragonologist Goes Abroad

On a drizzly evening in February, a man with a suitcase walked through Muggle London on his way to the American Embassy.

The suitcase was battered. At a casual glance, a passerby might think it was cowhide; a slightly less casual passerby might think it was some sort of alligator. In fact, it was graphorn hide, well worn and scuffed and, in several places, scorched.

The man was a little battered, too. He wore a heavy sheepskin coat, slightly shabby; a woolen earflap hat covered with pills and a knitted muffler to match, jeans worn white at every seam, and sturdy leather boots so scuffed that the scuffs had run together into what might almost pass for a fashionable texture if it had been on purpose. The man’s hair was so red that even the gray day couldn’t fade it, and at that slightly awkward length of a short haircut that had gone just too long without a trim. Given time, it could attain “long”; at the moment it was merely “shaggy”. He had several days’ worth of unshaved stubble on his face: not fashionable stubble, but just the scruffiness of forgetting to shave. He was also missing most of one gingery eyebrow. This had not been a daring fashion choice on his part, but rather the unfortunate result of a minor mishap involving a Chinese fireball chick. The sneezes of dragon chicks, while adorable, were also regrettably incendiary.

The Muggles he passed might have thought he was an artist with a particularly scruffy personal aesthetic, or they might have thought he was a camping or outdoor enthusiast. His brother-in-law’s aunt (a particularly acid specimen of humanity) would, without hesitation and with a certain spiteful satisfaction, have declared him a bum. He was none of these things. He was a dragonologist. His name was Charlie Weasley.

He reached the American embassy, and slipped inside.

His ignored the confusion of the Muggle embassy entirely, turning instead to a brick wall to his right. It would have looked like nothing but a blank wall to Muggles: plain brick, with a few posters (“If you see something, say something!” “Security is everyone’s concern!” “Cover your cough!”) hanging on it. To a magical visitor—Charlie, for instance—two large signs were visible. The one on the left said

**Embassy of**

**The United Magical States of America**

**Please Step Forward**

and was embellished with an American flag (rippling endlessly) at the top and the MACUSA seal at the bottom. 

Charlie approached the sign on the right. It said

**Embassy of**

**The Magical Republic of Texas**

**Please Step Forward**

and featured the single-starred Texas flag, slightly brighter in color and more enthusiastic in movement than its neighbor, as if determined not to be outdone. Instead of a seal at the bottom, the image of a jackalope bounded endlessly in place. As he watched, it stopped and cocked its head at him, as if saying, _what are you waiting for? Step forward then_.

Charlie did, a little hesitantly; was this like the entrance to Platform 9¾, in which one just pushed right through the wall? Was it like the entrance to Diagon Alley, requiring a tap of the wand on a specific brick? Did he need a password?

Instead of that, as he drew close, a split opened down the wall, and the two halves peeled back and rolled up neatly, like two ends of a scroll. He glanced back to make sure no Muggle was paying attention, then stepped through.

He found himself in a small, pleasant vestibule, decorated with bright moving posters of longhorn cattle, bluebonnets, racing herds of jackalopes, sunning cactus cats, and palm-lined beaches; there was even one of a vaguely broom-shaped vessel shooting skyward toward the moon, clouds flashing endlessly past its sides. “National Aeromancers and Sidereal Artificers”, it read. On a small plant stand to the left of the door, a bulbous, spiny cactus hummed to itself, swaying slowly to and fro in its painted terra-cotta pot. At the desk in front of him, a woman sat with her boots propped up on the desk’s top, reading a novel called _Wizards of Mars._

Charlie cleared his throat politely.

The official jumped, straightened up, returned her feet to the floor, and bookmarked the page in her novel, almost all in one movement. “Sorry!” she said. “Step on up.”

Charlie slid what appeared to be a blank parchment booklet across the desk to her, and she tapped it briskly with her wand. Color bloomed across the cover, spreading out from the spot she had tapped, revealing the crest of magical Great Britain in gold leaf on a burgundy background, along with the words “British Passport”. She flipped it open, and the previously blank parchment page now contained Charlie Weasley’s identification. She glanced quickly between the man before her and his picture (which, like every other passport picture she had ever seen, was blinking and shifting awkwardly, with a fixed smile on its face). His hair was longer and his face slightly less freckly now than when the picture was taken, but it was him.

“Oh yes!” she exclaimed, remembering. “I have your visa paperwork. One moment.”

She tapped the end of her wand a couple of times against the end of a narrow metal tube poking out from the wall behind her, and a moment later a thin roll of parchment came shooting out of it. She caught it and spread it out on the desk.

“Right, your research visa has already been approved via owl. That saves time.” She took out a fountain pen and unscrewed the cap.

“Now then, where will you be based during your stay?”

“The Juan Seguin Magifauna Research Station,” he told her. He pronounced the name “John Segwin”.

For a second the official just blinked, mentally translating, then filled the blank on the form. “All right, and what is the specific reason for travel? I mean, what are you researching?”

“I’m a dragonologist.” He said this in a slightly defensive tone, anticipating the “What the hell are you doing _that_ for?” response he had grown accustomed to. And indeed, her head snapped up, but her expression was not incredulous; it was delighted. “Good for you!” she exclaimed. “About time Texan dragons got some love.” She signed the form with a flourish, rolled it back up, and popped it back into the metal chute; it vanished with a _foomp._

The official turned to a fresh page in the passport, stamped it, signed the stamp, and handed the passport back to Charlie. “Here you go, you’re all set.”

He took it, and turned the page to look at the stamp. It showed an outline of the Republic of Texas, filled with about a dozen little stars appearing and fading, with _The Magical Republic of Texas_ curving in an arc above it. In the space below the map, the customs official had signed her name in ink that slowly shifted between blue and red. He closed the passport and pocketed it again.

She stood up. “Right, if you’ll just follow me, I’ll get you your portkey and you can be on your way.”

On the wall nearby, Charlie saw what looked like a large square cabinet door, closed, and beside it a brass speaking tube. “Charlie Weasley,” the official enunciated carefully into the tube, and there followed a series of loud clunks and thumps from the other side of the wall. Then, with a cheerful _ding_ , the cabinet door slid open, revealing the designated portkey. The official reached in carefully and took it out.

She had to be careful, because the portkey, to Charlie’s complete confusion, was not a bit of unnoticeable common rubbish, like an empty butterbeer bottle or an old torn page of the _Daily Prophet_ or a crumpled chocolate frog packet. Neither was it one of the small tchotchkes some wizards kept in their houses, to use when they didn’t want to travel by the Floo Network. Instead, it was what appeared to be a small dead plant, about the size and shape of a quaffle, completely brown and completely covered with spines. The official offered it to Charlie, and he took it gingerly, holding it by the stem (which seemed less prickly than the rest). “Um. . .”

“It’s a tumbleweed,” the official explained, seeing his confusion. “You’ll see them everywhere; it’s pretty much the standard portkey for rural Texas. Now, do you have all your belongings? I’ll call the research station, and you can be off.”

Charlie tucked his passport, hat, and scarf securely into his suitcase, checked the latches to make sure they were secure, and got a good grip on the handle. Then he carefully picked up the tumbleweed by the stem again, using his fingertips. “Ready.”

There was a mirror set into the surface of the desk. “Juan Seguin Magifauna Research Station,” the official told it, and waited for a moment.

(Oops, thought Charlie. So that’s how you’re supposed to pronounce it.)

“Juan Seguin Research Station here,” said a Texas-accented woman’s voice from the other end of the mirror.

“I have Charlie Weasley here for you, if you want to go ahead and activate the portkey.”

“Okay, great! Perfect! Just a sec—”

And then, with the usual portkey feeling of being _yanked_ , Charlie was off.


	2. The Juan Seguin Magifauna Research Station

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie arrives at the research station.

Charlie’s first impression upon landing was cold and wind. The sharp, freezing gale left him gasping, and he had to take a step to keep from being pushed off-balance. He hadn’t somehow expected Texas to be so _cold._ Weren’t there supposed to be palm trees, and cactuses and things? Instead of that, all he saw was a tawny landscape of winter-dry tall grass as far as he could see, under a pale, cloudless sky; the only manmade structure in sight was what looked like a low, curving, stone wall not far away, only about waist-high. Had the portkey dropped him in the wrong place?

“You okay?” said someone beside him, and he felt a hand reach out to steady him.

Charlie turned toward the person, and saw a tall man in a plaid boiled-wool jacket with a suede collar. He wore a short beard, his mustache had been waxed into a pair of crisp points, and curls of his dark hair showed under the brim of his knitted cap. If Charlie had been a Muggle, his first impression would probably have been “hipster”.

(This comparison did not, in fact, occur to Charlie at all. The wizarding world doesn’t really have an equivalent concept; all wizards already belong to a small community, proudly outside the mainstream, and many also sport a personal aesthetic not unlike the average hipster, embodied not least by the tendency to grow beards of extraordinary length and flamboyance. All this being the case, the concept of “hipster” as a lifestyle isn’t really of much relevance. All wizards are, so to speak, more or less hipsters already.)

“Charlie Weasley, right?” said the man. “It’s an honor, honestly. I’ve read your work on juvenile Norwegian ridgebacks; groundbreaking stuff.” He held out his hand, sheathed in a knitted fingerless glove. “I’m Andrew. The chupacabra guy.”

Charlie, feeling a bit bowled over (and also forcibly reminded of his sister-in-law Hermione, who also had the tendency to launch into enthusiastic monologues without warning), took Andrew’s offered hand and shook it. “Nice to meet you.”

“Here, let me take that for you,” said Andrew, simultaneously whisking the suitcase from Charlie’s hand before he could say a word. “The research station is just here; we can get in out of the cold.” And with that, off he went. Charlie had to trot to keep abreast of him.

Then, Andrew looked more closely at the suitcase he had appropriated, and spotted the discreet hallmark stamped under the handle. “Wait, is this a real Newtcase?” he asked, sounding impressed and maybe slightly envious.

Charlie had grown up in a big family with a small income. Not to put too fine a point on it, he had grown up dirt-poor. And though that was less the case in recent years, he still had never gotten over a mix of embarrassment and even guilt whenever he was caught owning expensive things. Genuine Newt Scamander Magizoologist Field Cases were quite expensive.

“A good friend of mine is a Scamander by marriage,” he said, not looking at Andrew as he said it, and knowing he sounded apologetic. “She gave it to me a few years ago.” He didn’t mention that Luna had given it to him after his first monograph, _Gentle Inferno: Maternal Care in Eurasian Dragons_ , had been given a glowing review in _The Magizoology Quarterly_ by Newt Scamander himself. Trying to talk about things like that always felt like bragging, and left him blushing and tongue-tied.

As the two of them approached the opening in the curving wall, Charlie saw that it encircled the rim of a kind of sunken courtyard, about twenty or thirty yards in diameter; moreover, it was not made of stone, as he had first assumed, but of buff-colored adobe. The gap in it opened on a small landing, then a flight of stairs, which curved along the sunken courtyard’s stuccoed wall to the terracotta-tiled floor below.

Doors opened all along the courtyard’s circumference, presumably leading to workrooms and living areas and the like. A couple of work tables stood in the middle, but neither was in use; everyone presumably thought it was far too cold to stay outside, and Charlie didn’t blame them.

Andrew had nearly reached the tiled courtyard floor while Charlie was taking everything in. He hurried to catch up, and the moment he descended below ground level, he gasped in relief at being out of the wind. Clearly there was something to be said for building underground.

When the two men reached the floor, Andrew led the way across the courtyard, pointing out things as they passed: “That door goes to the dining hall. _Very_ important!” “That’s the workroom there, for cataloguing and photographing and whatnot.” “Everyone puts notices on that bulletin board there.”

(Charlie looked at the bulletin board in question, and saw that there was currently only one note attached to it. Even from several paces away, he could easily read it, because it had been written in thick block letters in black ink: **Quit sticking things to Margaret you jerks!** )

“And here’s your room!” said Andrew, stopping at one of the doors. A sign attached to it read “Welcome Charlie Weasley!”, and underneath that, someone had drawn a picture of a Union Jack. “Supper is at six o’clock, and you can meet everyone else then.” He paused, then added, “Do you. . .you know, need to know what the time is? We’re six hours behind you over there in England.”

“No, I have it,” Charlie assured him. “I adjusted my watch before I came.”

“Okay, well, then.” Andrew handed over Charlie’s suitcase. “Welcome to the station,” he added, slightly at loose ends. “I’ll see you at supper!”

Charlie accepted his case. “Thanks.” Then he opened the door and went inside.

In the courtyard, it had been nice to be out of the wind. Inside the flat, though, it was blessedly, properly, _warm._ Directly to his left, in the corner between the exterior wall and one of the side walls, was the reason for the warmth: a beehive-shaped stucco fireplace, with several logs blazing away in it merrily. The room also contained a narrow bed (covered with a thick quilt) along the left-hand wall, a plain chest of drawers opposite it along the right-hand wall, and, directly ahead, a door into what turned out to be a tiny toilet. Most of the flat’s tiled floor was covered by a thick woven rug, in earthy colors, and a glass-chimneyed lamp (full of either oil or paraffin) stood on the chest, ready to be lit. Charlie laid his suitcase beside the lamp, and briefly debated unpacking some of his belongings; he had hardly considered it, however, before a huge yawn reminded him of the time difference. Supper wasn’t for hours yet, and he had already had a full day. He decided to treat himself to a nap.


	3. Supper with a Side of Food for Thought

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie has his first supper at the research station, and then has some things to think about.

The research station’s canteen (“dining hall”, rather, Charlie supposed) was a warm, stucco-walled room with exposed beams in the plaster ceiling, and another beehive-shaped fireplace at one end, larger than the one in Charlie’s flat. On the brick hearth, two bowls sat side by side; he couldn’t see what was in them. The rest of the researchers were already seated around a battered wooden trestle table, talking loudly, and he hesitated a little before going in.

“Hey! Charlie!” Andrew stood up from his place, and waved him in; his neighbor, a slim, black-haired man, ducked with practiced ease to avoid the overenthusiastic movement.

Charlie went in, and took the empty chair near one end of the table. He looked down, but there was no sign of food, not even plates; a glance around the room revealed no sideboards, no cupboards, and only one door apart from the one that led outside. That door was closed, and a big sign on it said

**DO NOT ENTER**

**Under Any Circumstances!**

in bright-red letters. Charlie stared at it, baffled. Sure, most canteen kitchens didn’t encourage people to constantly traipse through, but even at Hogwarts you could go into the kitchens if you really wanted to. Did the cooks here use some sort of dangerous magic? He couldn’t imagine what that could possibly be, to create edible food, and if it did turn out to be the case, he shuddered to think what Ron and George could do with those sorts of recipes. Skiving Snackboxes and canary creams and things were bad enough!

While he was thinking this, a clock on the wall chimed, and everyone abruptly stopped talking and leaned forward in anticipation. The door opened of its own accord; not all the way, or even enough for anyone to see inside, but just enough to let a collection of plates levitate smoothly through it in an orderly line, each one trailing a streamer of steam in its wake. In the vanguard of the plates, a wave of spicy, savory aroma rolled over everyone, and Charlie closed his eyes and inhaled deeply in appreciation.

A plate settled neatly before each person, followed by glasses and silverware in an orderly flock, and then a pitcher of water, clinking with ice, came to rest at each end of the table. Then, with a click, the door snapped closed again.

“Oh my god, Cookie made tamales! Hell yes!” exclaimed a dark-haired, dark-skinned young man on the other side of the table, digging in. From all sides, everyone else murmured in concurrence, mouths full.

Charlie looked down at his plate. It contained a generous pile of steaming, spicy-smelling rice, full of colored bits that must be spices and peppers; a dish of red salsa and another of soured cream, and a pyramid of three slightly flattened cylinder-shaped items he couldn’t identify at all. Their surface seemed to be some sort of. . .paper? Dried leaves? Were they some sort of Texan dolmas? He poked one with his fork, but the tines didn’t go through.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said the woman beside him. He turned to her; she had black hair and striking, almost feline golden eyes. “They’re tamales, I guess you’ve never had them,” she explained. “They’re masa pastry around a spicy filling, wrapped in cornshucks and steamed. Kind of. . .dumpling-like? You have to take off the cornshucks before you eat them. See?” She took one of hers off its stack, and deftly unrolled the corn husk from around it.

Charlie did the same, and when he took a careful bite, he understood the excited reaction everyone else had had when the tamales were revealed. The steamed pastry was tender and lightly seasoned, and inside was a heady mixture of pork (roasted to melting tenderness), spices and herbs he couldn’t even identify, chile peppers he had no name for, something smoky and salty and savory. . .no wonder everyone was so delighted to get this meal.

It was spicy, though, and, he soon discovered, so was the rice (which was tastier than almost any rice he had ever eaten). He had a higher tolerance for spicy food than many in his family, having lived in Romania and enjoyed some spicy Hungarian- and Turkish-derived dishes, but still. When his neighbor, the amber-eyed young woman, saw him starting to sweat and drink more than his share of water, she again took pity on him, and pointed him in the direction of the soured cream. “Dairy takes the edge off spice,” she said.

When everyone had cleaned their plates, the plates drifted back into the air, queued up neatly, and floated back through the “Do Not Enter” door. As soon as they were gone, a second plate procession emerged, and each of these plates, when they settled before each person, contained a single, perfect square of cake, garnished with chocolate and caramel.

”Tres leches cake,” Charlie’s neighbor offered. “It’s a cake soaked in evaporated milk, condensed milk, and cream. Three milks, see? ‘Tres leches’.” She took a bite of hers, and closed her eyes for a moment in bliss. “Cookie is welcoming you to the station, obviously. He clearly pulled out all the stops for your first supper here!”

Charlie started on his piece of cake, and he believed it. He’d never had a meal anything like as good while in the field before, even at the elaborate dinners (loathsome things, in his opinion) meant to woo donors at the Dragonology Centre in Romania.

As soon as the last crumbs of tres leches cake had been eaten, everyone got up and started to leave. Charlie was a little surprised; he had expected everyone to sit and chat for a while. Was that not something Texans did? Apparently not, as they all hustled out the door the very moment the last dishes and the pitchers had disappeared.

Charlie found himself walking next to the young woman who had coached him through supper. “Thanks for your help,” he said, and meant it. “I would’ve tried to eat a corn husk.”

”No problem,” she said, and held out her hand to shake. “I’m Mariposa, the station medic.”

He took her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

They walked in silence across the twilit courtyard for a moment, then Charlie asked a question he had been wondering since the first procession of floating plates appeared. “All of you keep talking about a “cookie”? Is that the cook? Why doesn’t he want anybody to see him?”

“Sorry, I should’ve explained. Tamales and tres leches cake. . .kinda dominates your attention.”

Charlie couldn’t disagree with that.

“The term ‘cookie’ is an old cattle drive term for the person on the trail who ran the chuckwagon and did the cooking. A highly regarded position, actually; just below the trail boss.”

They reached Charlie’s door, but he really wanted to know more. “Want to come inside for a cuppa? I have some good tea.”

“Sure,” she said, and they went inside. Charlie fetched a tin of teabags, two mismatched mugs, and his kettle from his suitcase. Then he filled the kettle with a quick _aguamenti_ , tapped its copper side and boiled the water with a heating charm, and in no time two steaming mugs of tea were ready, sending up wisps of steam and the familiar aroma of black tea and chai spices. Mariposa had already conjured a chair for herself, and was relaxing near the fire; he handed her the mug with the faded Holyhead Harpies logo on it. He kept the mug blazoned with the House Targaryen sigil (a half-joking gift from Harry) for himself.

“So,” Charlie said, conjuring a chair for himself and taking a sip of tea, “You were telling me about Cookie?”

”Right.” Mariposa sipped her own tea, and remarked, “You’re right, that is tasty.” She took another swallow, then continued. “So, like I said, the term ‘cookie’ comes from cattle drives. And we call Cookie that because he’s a Brownie, and Brownies don’t like it when you give them a name you’ve thought up yourself.”

“A. . .Brownie?”

“Yes.” She looked at him in surprise. “You have to know about Brownies; they’re Scottish fae! Right in your own back yard.”

He shook his head slowly. “I don’t think. . .wait, are you talking about house elves?”

She grimaced a little at the term. “What?” asked Charlie, not sure what he had said wrong.

“You need to not call them that,” Mariposa said seriously. “You know it’s a slur, right?”

Charlie blinked at her. He genuinely had not known that. Though, thinking about it, and knowing how horribly house elves had been treated for centuries, he could understand that it might be. “I. . .I didn’t.” Then, he hastily added, “I’m sorry, I won’t use it again.”

She sighed. “You didn’t know. I understand Brownies are still enslaved in England, so it’s not surprising at all that you would use the term based on their enslavement.”

“We’re trying to make it better!” he insisted, obscurely determined to defend his country. “Just in the last decade, new laws have made more progress toward elvish rights than in the last five hundred—” he caught himself. “Sorry, Brownie’s rights, I mean. Sorry.”

“Well, anyway,” said Mariposa, letting a very grateful Charlie out of an intensely awkward exchange, “Brownies don’t like their names to be known, and they especially don’t like to be given a name by someone else.” She took another sip of tea, thoughtfully. “You know, that’s probably part of how they were enslaved in the first place. Something to do with names. Names have a lot of power, you know, when you’re dealing with fae.”

Charlie thought of the infantile, cutesy, or downright insulting house elf—Brownie!—names he had heard: Dobby, Winky, Hokey, Kreacher. Kreacher, _seriously_? Yes, it would make sense: some powerful wizard, or a group of them, managed to anchor magic to some Brownie’s True Name, and there you go.

”And they—Brownies, I mean—they don’t like to be seen, either?”

“They hate being caught at their work. They’re naturally generous people, who like to take care of their own; not like humans, who are naturally tyrants and bullies.” Charlie shifted in his chair, disquieted. “But they don’t like anyone to see them doing it, and if anyone spies on them on purpose, they often just pack up and leave right then and there. So Cookie’s kitchen is totally off-limits to anyone else. If you see him around, it’s because he doesn’t mind you seeing him at that moment.”

”Right.” Charlie took a long sip of tea, but didn’t really taste it. This conversation had given him a lot more to process than he had expected. “Is there, er, anything else I need to know? Or do, or not do?”

Mariposa swallowed the last of her mug of tea, thinking about it. “Mainly, don’t try to watch him, and don’t try to name him. Don’t under any circumstances give him any gifts of anything to wear, not even a ring or a sock; that’s guaranteed to make any Brownie pack up and leave, and we’re lucky to have him! And when it’s your turn, put out the cream and honey on the hearth in the dining hall, but don’t try to watch him take it.”

Charlie finished his tea, feeling unexpectedly nervous, hoping to bear these instructions in mind.

Seeing this, Mariposa added, “It’s okay, you’ll do fine. The bottom line is, respect him. Don’t condescend in any way; just treat him the way you’d treat a human teammate, right?”

Charlie nodded. “I think I can do that.”


	4. Portkey-Lag and Waffles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie learns an invaluable new spell, eats a waffle, and goes out in the field.

The next morning, Charlie dragged himself blearily to breakfast, his body stridently insisting that it was, in fact, the middle of the afternoon and it did not appreciate the nonsense. After several hours of tossing and turning last night, he had given in and taken some Drusilla’s Drowsiness Draught, and that had let him sleep, but it also always left him feeling groggy and drugged the next morning. Even the waffles (which were entirely different from the potato-based kind he had seen before) and excellent coffee didn’t quite succeed in waking him up. He thought he had some Pepperup Potion in his suitcase somewhere, he would have to rummage for it before starting work today—

“Are you all right? You look like you didn’t get any sleep last night.”

Charlie blinked at the speaker: the man who had said “hell yes” to last night’s tamales. Had he told Charlie his name? If so, he couldn’t think of it at the moment; he could barely remember his own name. It took a moment for his brain’s sludgy synapses to process the question, then he said, “I’m fine, it’s just portkey-lag and having to take a sleeping potion last night.”

The man (he thought his name was something that reminded him of kings, or was it lions. . .something like that. . .stupid portkey-lag. . .) groaned in commiseration. “I hear you, man. On the bright side, as for so many things, there’s a spell for that!”

 _A spell for that?_ “There is?”

“Of course. I guess it makes sense; Texas is huge, and America even bigger. Europe is really pretty tiny, all things considered, so you probably wouldn’t have as much need for it.”

Charlie felt a moment’s confused indignation: Europe? _Small_? But he couldn’t entirely argue with it.

“Yeah, even Romania was only a couple of hours different,” he admitted.

“Well, it’s not every day you learn a brand-new spell at breakfast!” said the man (was it a name from the Bible, maybe?). “Ready?”

“The sooner the better,” said Charlie, in complete honesty. He felt as if his head was stuffed with lukewarm oatmeal.

“ _Tempus loci_ ,” said the man (Darius! Of course, his name was Darius), and gave Charlie a smart tap on the forehead with, honestly, the smallest wand Charlie had ever seen anyone use. It was only about the size of his finger.

But it didn’t matter. All at once, he felt the sludgy grogginess lift, and instantly sat up straighter. He still felt a little draggy from the potion, but nothing he couldn’t easily ignore. It would wear off in a bit. “That was amazing! ‘ _Tempus loci_ ’? And you just tap the person on the forehead?”

“That’s it!” Darius grinned, twirled his wand between his fingers, and put it away again.

Charlie shook his head, amazed. How had he never known that spell before? More to the point, why did the Texan Embassy not distribute it to everyone in a little brochure or something? “Thanks a lot,” he said. “Really.”

“No problem.” Darius grinned again. “Only right, really; you and I are going out into the field together today, it sounds like, so it’s up to me to be a responsible babysitter.”

Charlie gave a snort of laughter, and then resumed eating his waffle (liberally coated, as recommended by his table-mates, with butter, whipped cream, and maple syrup). Now that he could focus on it, he could really appreciate it: crisp and golden outside, airy inside, not too sweet and deliciously yeasty. For an experiment, he took a spoonful of strawberry jam from a nearby jar and tried that on his next bite; superb. He even risked trying a bit from the bowl of crunchy peanut butter; he had never really eaten peanut butter, and it was a brown, chunky paste that honestly didn’t look at all appetizing, but with these waffles, he feared nothing. Nor was he disappointed.

He looked up, and caught Darius watching him in amusement. “Just wait ‘til you try waffles with fried chicken,” he said.

Charlie couldn’t tell whether he was serious.

“So, you’re still planning to start with ruby-winged draclets?” asked the man with long black braids of hair across the table (Parker, Charlie remembered), referring to what Charlie had proposed in his grant application.

“Well,” he answered, “yes, I was planning to. Are there some in the area?”

“There’s some ideal draclet habitat a few miles away from here,” said Darius, mopping up syrup and melted butter from his plate with a forkful of waffle. “I study tepemeh, and the one tepetl I’ve been watching is close to where the draclets nest. So it just makes sense all around for me to take you.”

Charlie had heard of tepemeh, and hoped he would get the chance to see one. Any creature whose name meant “hill” couldn’t help but be interesting!

After breakfast (which ended with the usual procession of plates exiting the room, after which a line of lunches, packed neatly in brown paper bags, entered and settled before each person), Charlie and Darius returned to their rooms, picked up their kits (Charlie’s suitcase, and Darius’s rucksack), and headed toward the broom shed to pick up their transportation. On the way, they passed a cat, lounging in a crescent of morning sun in the tiled courtyard. At first, it looked like an ordinary, rather pudgy, tabby cat, but as they came closer, Charlie saw that its head and back were covered with hedgehog-like quills instead of fur. It had a short, forked tail, covered with long spines. One of these tail spines had what looked like a miniature marshmallow impaled on it.

”Hello, Margaret,” Darius greeted the cat. She blinked back amiably.

“That’s Margaret, the station cactus cat,” he told Charlie as they approached the broom shed, and as they selected their brooms, Charlie thought of the marshmallow, and remembered the notice he had seen on the bulletin board yesterday. That made sense now, though apparently the notice itself hadn’t done any good! Margaret seemed to be bearing the pranks with catly dignity, however.

The wind out on the prairie was already beginning to pick up, and that, combined with the speed of the brooms, had Charlie’s nose and lips numb with cold by the time the two of them touched down. He made a mental note: get hold of a balaclava at the soonest possible moment. Darius was a native Texan, and had known to wear one.

He removed it now, and his breath plumed out in the cold air as he said, “Ruby-winged draclets like to nest inside big clumps of prickly pear, like that one.” He pointed to the nearby clump in question, and it was indeed huge, towering out of the knee-high grass in a spiny mound big enough to hide a small car.

“Have you seen them here?” Charlie asked interestedly, moving closer and examining the imposingly-thorned (leaves? fronds? pads?) that made it up. He spotted movement inside, and quickly identified a cottontail rabbit. He touched one of the spines with his finger, and then jerked back with a hiss of pain. No wonder the cottontail was hiding in there, and no wonder draclets used cactuses like this as nesting sites: what predator with any sense would come near?

 _No predators, just magizoologists_ , he thought, amused.

As Charlie examined the prickly pear, Darius was doing some sort of repelling spell nearby. Using his miniature wand again, he described a large arc, wide enough to hide the entire massive prickly pear clump behind, and higher than his own head. When he finished, there was a liquid shimmer in the space he had charmed, like a mirage, and all at once the sharp wind dropped away almost to nothing. “A windbreak spell?” Charlie asked, impressed.

“You wouldn’t want to try to work outdoors in the wintertime, in this part of Texas, without one.”

”I believe that.”

Darius opened a pocket of his rucksack, and took out a small object that looked like a bit of horn or scale, attached to the end of a string. “Point me,” he told it, and the horn fragment immediately began to pull firmly forward and to the left. “Looks like she’s nearby!” He turned to Charlie, and said, “Want to go have a look at the tepetl first? Then you can come back and search up some draclets.”

Charlie had been hoping for exactly that offer. Tepemeh were fascinating, from everything he’d read, and he had been hoping to get to see one. “I’d love that,” he said.

As they swished through the winter-brown tall grass, following Darius’s pendulum, Charlie asked, “So, did you go to Ilvermorny?”

Darius shook his head. “Nah, no one in my family has ever had that kind of money! The Ivy Leagues are pretty much just for rich one-percenters to impress other rich one-percenters, anyway. I went to the Texas Tech School of Magic.”

Charlie blinked, confused. “But, I thought Texas Tech was a Muggle school?”

“It is, but it also has a magical middle school and high school attached to it.” He grinned, amused by Charlie’s astonished (and slightly scandalized) expression. “Texas isn’t a member of the International Confederation of Wizards, and we never signed on to the Statute of Secrecy. Besides,” he added, “we already did the whole ‘segregation’ thing. And believe me when I say, it was less than awesome.”

Charlie had no idea what to say to that. So he just said “Oh”, lamely, and fell silent. The two men walked for a few minutes, the only sounds the swishing of the dry grass and the hissing of the wind.

Finally, they stopped, and Darius took out a pair of omniculars. He scanned around, and then said, “Aha! There she is, see?”

Charlie squinted in the direction he indicated, and saw something that could easily be mistaken for a particularly large, round boulder. Then, ponderously, it moved.

Darius stowed his horn pendulum back in his rucksack, then took out two objects, apparently necklaces of some sort, and handed one to Charlie. He slipped the cord of the other over his own head, and then, with a ripple of the air, he simply faded from view. Charlie was so startled that he nearly dropped his own necklace, and only just caught himself before making some sort of noise that might have spooked the tepetl.

He closely examined the necklace in his hands. The pendant was a Möbius loop, he now saw, and it was knitted: knitted from some sort of shiny, flexible, transparent thread. A strong cord was laced through it, so it could be worn around a person’s neck.

“It’s a chameleon amulet,” came Darius’s voice from the apparently empty space where he had been standing. “It bends the light around you, so you can’t be seen.”

Charlie slipped it on, and he also melted from view. “This is as good as an invisibility cloak!” he said. “What is it made of?”

“I made it out of fiber-optic thread,” came the disembodied reply. “It took about—“

“You _made_ these?” Charlie gasped, and was so focused on the impressive piece of magic that he didn’t notice the movement of the grass ahead of him stopping, and almost walked right into Darius. Darius’s voice was different when he replied; apparently he had turned around to face Charlie.

“It’s a magical focus,” he said, sounding a little disconcerted. “It took concentration, sure, but. . .you have to have made magical focuses before! Haven’t you?”

“No, I just. . .you know, use my wand for everything.”

There was a short silence, then Darius said, “Oh you poor savage Brit. . .I have some books you can borrow about building focuses. I am about to change your life.” The grass started moving again. “But, the tepetl first.”


	5. Tepemeh, Wands, and Ruby-Winged Draclets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magical creatures make an appearance.

The two magizoologists crept closer to the tepetl, hidden by the chameleon amulets. As they drew closer, Charlie could see more of her: a huge dome-shaped carapace, covered in hexagonal scutes and sparse bristles of spiky hair; a flat, chunky head capped with more armor; a thick, short tail covered with rings of bony points; stubby, pillar-like legs. He could see the heavy muscles in her jaws working as she grazed on the tough prairie grass, not fast, but with an unstoppable single-minded focus. A flock of birds swirled around her, sometimes alighting on her back, and sometimes hopping behind her, pouncing on the worms or bugs churned up in the wake of her massive feet. One bird perched for a moment on the top of her bony helmet; she gave her head a slow, titanic shake, and the bird flew off again.

“She’s beautiful,” Charlie whispered to Darius, awed.

“I know, right?”

“And if something threatened her, she’d just. . .disappear into the landscape?”

”Yes, around here she would just shift to look like a pile of rocks, or a little hill covered with grass. That’s why Muggles know about them, but think they went extinct thousands of years ago. They’ve only found the bones of dead ones.”

“Like diricawls.”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

They watched the tepetl for a while longer. After a bit, there was a bawling sound, and a much smaller tepetl (only about the size of a pony, rather than a car) came around the front of the larger one. She gave it one lick with her tongue, making a bellowing sound so deep that Charlie could feel it in his chest.

”That’s her most recent calf,” Darius whispered. “He’s pushing three years old now. She’s pregnant, too, close to term; I’ve been keeping a close watch. She should have her new calf in the next few weeks.”

“Wow.”

They continued to watch the tepemeh for a while longer. Eventually, Darius said, “I don’t think anything new is going to happen today on the tepetl calf front. Want to go back to the prickly pear? See if we can spot some draclets?”

Charlie had been so enthralled with the tepemeh that he had all but forgotten Darius was even there at all. He shook himself. “Oh! Yes, that would be perfect.”

They slipped away. After they had some distance, they removed their chameleon amulets, and Charlie said, “Would it be possible for me to make one of these?”

“Oh sure,” said Darius. “I mean, if you can knit. I still have part of the spool of fiber-optic thread; there should be enough on there to make another one. If you don’t know how to knit, I can show you—”

Charlie laughed. “Oh, there’s no problem there! My mum made sure all of us knew how to knit. We never knitted anything magical, just jumpers and socks and things, but yeah. Nobody grew up in my family without being able to knit.”

“It’s pretty useful,” Darius said. “Lots of magical focuses use knitting or weaving in some way; you’ll see that when you read the books. It has to do with the interlocking or interweaving characteristics, I think, and the fact that your hands have to be involved in all parts of the process.” He paused, his brow wrinkled as he thought. “I’ve actually never heard what would happen if you tried to use a knitting machine to make a magical focus. It might not work as well, I’m not sure; I think the lack of physical contact might be a problem.”

Charlie thought that was probably true; everyone knew that you couldn’t use your wand from a distance, after all. You actually had to have it in your hand for it to work. Even trying to use a wand with gloves on could hamper the process, which was why most wizards preferred knitted gloves to leather ones if it was at all workable. Less barrier between the wand and the hand.

That reminded him: “By the way, I don’t want to be offensive at all, so just tell me if this is a rude question, I totally understand and that’s completely fine, but I was wondering. Why do you use such a tiny wand? I’ve never seen one that small.”

“Comparing wand sizes, are we?” Darius quipped. “You should at least ask me on a date first.”

Charlie was normally very much on guard against accidentally making double-entendres. Puns relating to sex were never in the forefront of his mind, and so he sometimes made them accidentally; after a few embarrassing incidents (which George still couldn’t entirely let him forget), he trained himself to run all comments past what he thought of as “the inner twelve-year-old”. If the inner twelve-year-old could find a way to snigger at something, Charlie didn’t say it. Still, however, he sometimes missed things. On this occasion, his mind raced to put together whatever sex-related pun he had evidently made; an instant later, he got it. His ears went as red as his hair. “No, that’s not, I didn’t—”

Darius took pity on his obvious discomfort. “It’s okay, man, no problem. I didn’t mean I was hitting on you or anything. Just forget I said anything.”

They walked for a moment in silence. Charlie still couldn’t even look at Darius, and he was also irritated; he actually had wanted to know the answer to his question! But he would never be able to actually ask again, now.

But Darius answered anyway. “For several hundred years, my ancestors weren’t legally allowed to have wands in North America. Even my grandmother wasn’t able to carry a wand legally until she was an adult. So freedmen and abolitionists and Civil Rights activists researched and experimented, and started to create wands that were small enough to be easily concealed. A lot of black people still prefer to use ones like that, and nowadays a lot of them are made using African wandwoods and cores like nundu whiskers or mbenga scales. It’s become a heritage thing.”

”Oh,” said Charlie, again tongue-tied. Then, hesitantly, he said, “Would you be offended if I found that really cool?”

Darius laughed. “Well, it is cool. It’s kind of a point of pride now, in the African-American and African-Texan magical communities.” He took out his small wand again, and held it up for Charlie to see. Charlie didn’t reach out to touch it—everyone knew how rude it was to try to take anyone else’s wand without a specific invitation—but he saw that the wood was solid, silky black, its grain nearly invisible, and delicately carved with a decorative geometric pattern. “It’s blackwood,” said Darius, “with an impundulu-feather core.”

“Impundulu?” Charlie was surprised to encounter a magical creature he’d never heard of, but then, European magizoology didn’t tend to focus on African creatures.

“Southern African lightning bird. Not closely related to thunderbirds, weirdly, but with a lot of the same powers.”

They arrived back at the huge clump of prickly pear, and put the chameleon amulets back on. Charlie took out his omniculars. “You said draclets have been seen here?”

“Just within the last week, I think.”

Charlie crept closer. From all he’d read about ruby-winged draclets, they should be behaving like some birds of prey: perching on the highest point they could, sitting still, and watching for food to come along. His omniculars scanned slowly over the prickly pear, and spotted nothing, until—

—He saw a flash of deep red. He tracked it, and spotted the draclet, clinging delicately and with catlike balance to one of the spiny pads of the plant. It was much, much tinier than any dragon he’d studied before: only about the size of a hawk or falcon. It was a rich russet or cinnamon color, shading to jewel-red on the impossibly fragile translucent wings. It had a long, slender body, built like a creature made to be fast and agile in the air, and a narrow snout that suggested small, quick prey. Charlie knew ruby-winged draclets were believed to feed on insects and spiders and scorpions and things like that; he thought it likely that mice or small birds might be on the menu too. He would have to observe and find out. He thought about a dragon species, entirely new to him and very minimally researched by anyone, and felt almost too excited to stand still.

*

A couple of hours later, the two men decided to break for lunch, and Charlie invited Darius to come in out of the cold into the living space inside his suitcase. Before opening the lid, though, Charlie flipped open a small cap set into the leather side, revealing a dark hole about the diameter of a one-pound coin. There was a glow of warm light inside it, not a few inches away, as if it were inside a suitcase, but some distance off.

“What’s that?” asked Darius.

“Chimney,” Charlie replied, opening the lid of the suitcase and starting to descend inside. “For the stove.”

 _I have got to get one of those Newtcases_ , thought Darius, and started down after him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you were wondering, yes, the creature I’ve called a tepetl is in fact the prehistoric armadillo relative called (by Muggles) a glyptodon.


	6. Muggles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A family of Muggles comes to the station for help.

A few days later, Charlie was in his flat, lounging on his bed, drinking mug after mug of tea and carefully reading the book Darius had lent him about knitting magical focuses.

 _ **Chapter One**_ , he read. _**Choosing Your Materials**_.

_When planning a magical focus, your first step is to decide what material is most conducive to the magic you want to attach to it. The connection may be symbolic or metaphorical: for example, a focus to increase your concentration might be made of cotton yarn soaked overnight in strong coffee. The connection may also be practical; a focus to increase the connection between two people may have hairs from both parties physically knitted into it.*_

Charlie looked to the bottom of the page for the footnote, and read:

_*Be aware: interference with another person’s perceptions without full permission and consent is not only unethical, but illegal. These instructions are NOT intended to be used to create love or devotion spells, or to boost legilimency toward a specific target without that target’s explicit permission._

Charlie had never understood the desire to create love potions. Even if a person did get the experience of falling in love (and he was glad he didn’t, more often than not; it seemed incredibly inconvenient, and seemed to get people into more preventable trouble than anything else he knew of), why would they want to artificially create obsession in the object of their affection? They would _know_ it wasn’t real, so why? Besides, if nothing else taught the danger of love potions, surely the fact that _Voldemort had existed because of one_ would do the job. He knew George and Ron sold love potions, but he also knew for a fact that those were mild and temporary and could be resisted by a person determined to do it. More pranks than anything else. He knew this because he had looked into it, and if it had not been the case, he would have thrown a fit, and reminded Ron ruthlessly of how much he, Ron, had enjoyed the Romilda Vane Incident while he was in school. It was one of the few events still guaranteed to make Ron cringe, even all these years later (and never mind the fact that he’d also almost died).

Charlie had never really thought much about it, but really, why _weren’t_ love potions more tightly controlled substances back home? Felix Felicis was illegal in competitions or exams, and Aurors couldn’t use Veritaserum on suspects without a warrant. It wasn’t like potions weren’t controlled at all. So why not love potions?

Anyway. He read on.

_**Handspun yarn.** Handspun yarn can be an exceedingly powerful tool in the creation of high-precision magical focuses. The blend of fibers, the specific fiber preparation, and the drafting method can all affect the outcome—_

The station bell started to ring. Charlie looked up, startled: it was nowhere near time for dinner yet, was it? He looked at his watch. No, still midafternoon.

A pleasant voice spoke out of the air: “Attention. Three Muggles are approaching the station.”

Charlie bolted to his feet in a kind of panic, momentarily forgetting completely that Muggles and Magicals weren’t separated in Texas, and there was therefore no special cause for alarm. Instead, his mind darted to any possible circumstances—all of them serious—that could cause Muggle-repelling charms and other security measures to completely fail. He dashed outside, snatching up his sheepskin coat and pulling it on as he ran.

He was nearly to the top of the stairs, bracing himself for the blast of cold wind that would hit the moment his head peeked out above ground level, when he realized his mistake. He still wasn’t sure exactly why a group of Muggles would be visiting a magifauna research station, but there wasn’t any particular reason they couldn’t, not here in Texas. He stopped, leaned against the stuccoed wall for a moment to catch his breath, then continued topside to meet the Muggles at a much calmer pace.

There was a road to the station. None of the researchers used it much—when they needed to go into town, they generally Apparated—but it was there, and now there was a Muggle conveyance called a “pickup” driving down it, kicking up a plume of reddish dust as it came. Charlie watched it approach, and soon he was joined by Andrew. Andrew had worn his warmest hat, the one that covered his ears; Charlie wished he had worn his.

The pickup, which was red under a thick layer of dust, stopped, and a black-haired man in a denim jacket climbed out. He looked distressed, and said something in rapid, flowing Spanish: “ _Estamos buscando a la curandera_.”

Charlie’s Romanian was good, and his Hungarian and German passable, but he spoke barely a word of Spanish. He hoped Andrew would step in.

Andrew did, replying smoothly (“ _Por supuesto. Ven conmigo, por favor_.”) and beckoning the Muggles to come into the station. A woman, carrying a little girl, emerged from the pickup, and Andrew led the three of them to the stairs, with Charlie trailing behind with no idea what was happening.

As they walked, Andrew continued talking to the adult Muggles in a low voice, presumably getting some sort of details. When they reached the courtyard, Andrew knocked on the door of the infirmary, and called out, “Mariposa! You have a patient. _Susto_.”

A moment later, Mariposa opened the door. She was wearing her dragonhide apron, and her face was red from heat; a puff of steam rolled out from behind her. She must have been brewing potions. Still, she didn’t hesitate. “Of course, right.” Then she switched to Spanish: “ _Adelanten. Siéntense, por favor._ ”

Charlie watched them all go inside and the door close, feeling frustrated. “What’s going on?” he asked Andrew resignedly. “I don’t speak Spanish at all.”

“Oh!” said Andrew, as if he had just remembered Charlie was there. “Sorry, I forgot. Yeah, so, that family brought their daughter so Mariposa could treat her for _susto_.” He started walking toward the station workroom, to get out of the cold, and Charlie followed.

“ _Susto_?”

“Yeah, it means something like ‘fright’. Basically, it’s a magically-induced form of PTSD, so, they needed to come to a magical healer—a _curandera_ —to fix it.”

Charlie trotted, as usual, to keep up with Andew’s longer legs. “But they’re Muggles.”

“Being a Muggle doesn’t protect you from being cursed. Mariposa isn’t just our station medic; she has a pretty good circle of outside Muggle and Magical patients, too. Any time a person is attacked with _brujería_ , within about a hundred mile radius, they come to her.” Andrew opened the door of the workroom, and they both went inside.

“Bru—”

“ _Brujería_ ,” Andrew enunciated. “Harmful magic or witchcraft.”

Charlie pulled a chair out from the table and sat down. “And. . .and someone _cursed_ that little girl? With. . .what did you call it? PT. . .”

“PTSD.” Andrew directed a stream of ground coffee into the coffeepot with his wand, and tapped the carafe to boil the water, placing a mug under the spigot. Then he looked at Charlie quizzically. “Have you actually never heard of that?”

“We probably call it something different,” Charlie said, feeling a little defensive.

Andrew looked skeptical. “Maybe. Anyway, in the case of _susto_ , the curse is attached to the person in one of several different ways, but it doesn’t take effect immediately. What happens is, it’s just sort of latent until the person gets a fright or a scare of any kind, and that triggers it. It could be anything: tripping going down the stairs, realizing you forgot something, someone jumping out and startling you, anything. Probably it’s the adrenaline. And then the _susto_ kicks in.” Andrew swapped out the mugs, and handed the full one to Charlie while the second one filled.

“What does it do?” Charlie asked, both interested and more than a little horrified. That little girl couldn’t have been more than six years old.

“The victim can’t sleep or eat, and feels afraid or nervous or depressed all the time. She’s probably also having flashbacks to the original trigger event, even though it would probably have been something really minor under normal circumstances. So she probably feels embarrassed, too, because she’s basically traumatized by something she knows is nothing.”

“Bloody hell.” That was. . .horrible. Charlie had never heard of a spell of quite that kind of insidious malice before, and to do it to a child, and a completely vulnerable Muggle child at that. . . “But, Mariposa can fix it, right? She can reverse it, or whatever?”

Andrew’s coffee was done, and he brought it over to the table and sat down. “She’ll fix it. It may take a couple of visits, and it’s something the poor kid is going to have to remember and live with having happened, but yeah, Mariposa will break the curse. She can track it back to its caster, too, in case the police haven’t already caught the bastard.”

Charlie thought about something like that being done to one of his nieces or nephews, and felt downright vicious. “They had just better.”

“Damn straight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t speak Spanish terribly well, and while I have researched curanderismo, I have no personal experience with it. If there are errors, please let me know!


	7. Curanderismo

Inside the infirmary, Mariposa directed the family to sit down on a small love seat in front of her worktable. She cleared her paraphernalia off its surface (entirely by hand, rather than by magic), and pulled a chair around in front of them.

“Can you tell me what has happened?” she asked in Spanish, keeping her voice soft; even so, the little girl shivered, and hid her face in her mother’s shoulder.

It was the father who answered. “Our daughter has been. . .nervous, and afraid. She can barely sleep, or she wakes up with nightmares, and during the day she jumps at the slightest sound.” The two adults exchanged a look, then he added, “We think it may be _susto_.”

“I see. I can certainly find out, and I will help.” Mariposa got up, keeping her movements slow and calm, and set out candles on the tabletop. She lit them, using matches rather than a spell, and began taking things out of one of the cupboards: a shallow bowl, which she filled with holy water from a jug; an egg; a bundle of herbs; a wand (not one that Charlie would have recognized, but one that looked more like a small spear); an obsidian knife; several glass jars of herbs; an ordinary drinking glass, which she filled from the tap; and a small medallion of Saint Dymphna. She picked up the egg, dipped it in the holy water, and returned to the family.

The little girl looked at her, scared, her brown eyes round, and clung tight to her mother’s sweater. “Don’t worry, _mija_ , you’re safe here. No one will hurt you,” Mariposa told her. She coaxed the girl into facing her, and as all four of them recited the Lord’s Prayer and then the Hail Mary, she ran the egg up and down the girl’s body. She felt resistance, or a faint pulling, and could just barely see a mirage-like shimmer in the air between the egg and the girl’s skin. The egg seemed to grow heavier in her hand, and by the time they all said “Amen”, it felt like it weighed as much as a lead weight. She had to put effort into pulling it away, like separating two magnets.

Already she was quite sure, from the behavior of the egg during the _limpia_ , that _brujeria_ was the cause of the problem. Someone had cursed the girl, most likely in order to hurt her parents. But just to make sure, she deftly cracked the egg into the glass of tap water. Sure enough, in the yolk was a dense spot of black nastiness, and the white squirmed in the water like something malevolently alive. The girl looked at it, and still seemed scared, but also curious, and her small fists loosened from her mother’s sweater; a good sign.

“Now,” said Mariposa, “I will cut the connection between you, _mija_ —” she smiled at the girl, and was relieved when the girl smiled shyly back— “and the bad person who wanted to hurt you. But first I have to make a connection to the bad person, so the police can catch them and stop them from doing anything else bad. Okay?”

The little girl nodded her head. Mariposa took a small compass from a cardboard box, tapped it a few times with the wand, and touched it to the girl’s torso at her solar plexus. Then, again with considerable effort against a pull, she drew it back, until there were about six inches of space between the compass (its needle whirling wildly) and the front of the girl’s _Frozen_ sweatshirt. Then she showed the girl the obsidian knife. “I’m just going to cut the link with this, okay? I won’t touch you at all. You don’t need to be scared.” After another nod of nervous acknowledgement, Mariposa made a quick slicing motion with the knife between the girl and the compass.

The link between the girl and the attacker snapped, and the spell caught and held on the compass instead with a jerk, almost causing Mariposa to lose hold of it. The compass needle gave a hard twitch, then settled, pointing firmly toward the northeast. The link had been strong, so something enduring must have been used to anchor the curse, not something in the environment that might have been planted for the girl to walk through or see or breathe in; more likely it was a doll, or a bit of the girl’s hair, or something similar. It was a less subtle, more traceable means of attacking a person with _susto_ , but also more enduring; this was not something that would have worn off in a week or two. Again, Mariposa was struck by the malice of whoever had made the curse. Its intent had been to make an entire family suffer, and to suffer for as long as possible.

The little girl took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. She clearly felt better immediately; she held her head up, let go of her mother’s sweater (though still sitting comfortably on her lap), and straightened her posture. For the first time, she looked around the infirmary and the interesting equipment and bottles and tools and ingredients and medicines with the curiosity a child ought to have. Mariposa couldn’t help smiling. 

“Now,” Mariposa said, “I just need to sweep away anything bad that’s still around you, and you’ll be all ready to go home!”

She picked up a bundle of rosemary and sage, tied together at one end into a broom-like bundle, and swept it lightly over the girl’s body; she said the Lord’s Prayer again, this time in Nahuatl, as she did so. The tickliness of the leaves made the girl giggle.

Before the family left, Mariposa measured out dried leaves and flowers into a cotton bag, and handed it to the girl’s parents. “When you get home,” she instructed, “steep this in a pot of hot water until it’s strong. Then pour it into a warm bath, and let her soak until the water cools. And if she begins to feel afraid again, she should have some hot _manzanilla_ tea.”

“Thank you! So much,” said the girl’s mother, tears in her eyes; her husband was less demonstrative, but when he shook Mariposa’s hand, he was shaking.

The little girl, for her part, flew to Mariposa and threw her arms around her. Mariposa smiled, stroking her smooth dark hair, and slipped the Saint Dymphna medallion over her head. “This is a medal of Saint Dymphna. She helps people who are scared, or upset, or worried. Remember that God is watching over you, okay, _mija_?”

“Okay.”

Mariposa watched them go, thankful as always that she had been blessed with the gift of _curanderismo_. Some of it was magic that any magic-user could do, but some of it, she believed (and her grandmother, also a _curandera_ , had always taught her), was simply a gift from God, and one had it or not. The satisfaction of lifting a vicious curse like that. . .what could possibly compare?

She sat down at her worktable, and took out a fountain pen and a sheet of Juan Seguin Magifauna Research Station letterhead. Then she wrote out a brief description of what she had done, the strength and tenacity of the _susto_ (“look for a doll, hair bundle, or other anchor,” she advised), the diagnostics provided by the egg, and her own impression that this was a deeply personal, deeply hateful crime. Then she signed the note, folded it into an envelope, sealed the envelope with a dab of wax (magical wax, compounded with an assortment of tamper-proof charms), and called out, “Roja? Are you there?”

There was a chirp from the rafters, and a red-tailed hawk descended with a flutter to perch on the edge of the table.

Mariposa tucked the envelope and the compass into a padded mailer and addressed it. “This needs to go to the magical police station in Lubbock,” she said. “The family said they had gone to the police, so they should know there what to do with the evidence.”

The hawk chirped again, and ruffled her feathers importantly. Then she took the envelope in her talons and Mariposa opened the door to let her fly out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, if I’ve gotten things about curanderismo wrong, please tell me!
> 
> By the way, yes, Mariposa has a hawk instead of an owl. In many Native American cultures, and some in Mexican culture, owls are not associated with intelligence or scholarliness, the way they are in European cultures. Instead, they tend to be bad or scary omens, or even death omens. It therefore makes sense to me that in Texas, and at least the South and Southwest of America, owls would not be commonly used for carrying mail or packages. People tend to use hawks, eagles, or sometimes ravens instead.


	8. Love, Charlie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie sends letters to his friends and family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it’s been so long: something happened, and that thing is called School Started Back.

The Right Honourable Hermione Jean Granger-Weasley  
Office of the Minister of Magic  
Ministry of Magic  
London  
England, United Kingdom

Dear Hermione,

I know it’s a little weird for me to write you at your official address! But did you know that intercontinental post arrives almost twice as quickly when it’s to the Minister of Magic? Rank hath its privileges, as they say.

Anyway, this letter is kind of official business, so you don’t even need to hide it from your secretary. Is it still Abelard? Sorry, I think I’ve lost track! You do go through secretaries at quite a lick, you know; not everybody is quite as much of a perfectionist as you!

We all learned in History of Magic how flying carpets were banned in England on account of being “misuse of Muggle artefacts”, like Dad’s old car.

(I wonder if that car is still living feral in the Forbidden Forest? I wonder if it’s technically a “beast” now, rather than an artefact? What if a second car got loose in there; would they breed and produce little, I don’t know, go-karts or something?)

Anyhow, did you know flying carpets (or flying rugs, more accurately) are being manufactured here in Texas, and in Mexico and southwestern America? Better than the old “enchanted Persian carpet” ones, too, because they’re woven in with magic from the beginning. And, did you catch that? The artisans who make them use magic to do it, so these rugs are _not Muggle artefacts_!

If you want to think about maybe getting the ban lifted, I can put you in touch with the Navajo Nation about getting some rugs imported for inspection. They’re not as nimble as brooms (so you can tell Ron that Quidditch won’t be turned on its head any time soon!), but they’re more comfortable, and also they can seat multiple people and carry luggage. I’ve been using one, with a Disillusionment Charm on it, to observe the dragons here; you wouldn’t want to sit on a broom like that all morning long!

I hear Rosie has shown interest in magical creatures! Obviously it's my job as the Best Uncle to encourage this. Do you think she’d like a subscription to _Menagerie Magazine_ (you know, that magazine for kids about magical creatures) for her birthday? I think Luna’s boys have gotten it for about five years now.

Give my love to everyone!

Love,  
Charlie

*****

Arthur and Molly Weasley  
The Burrow  
Ottery St Catchpole  
Devon, England, United Kingdom

Dear Mum and Dad,

Thank you so much for the new jumper! I didn’t expect it to be as cold in Texas as it is, and it’s _always_ windy.

Dad, I’ve enclosed a present for you. It’s called a “fountain pen”. It doesn’t make a fountain of ink, like you’re probably thinking; it isn’t a candidate for a new Wizard Wheeze! It’s like a quill, but instead of needing to be dipped in an inkpot, it has a little reservoir of ink inside it, so you can keep writing until the entire reservoir is used up before needing to refill it. Hardly anybody in Texas uses quills, except for very formal and official paperwork; everyone uses these fountain pens. The Muggles invented fountain pens first, so I knew you would be interested! I also included full instructions and diagrams about how to clean, maintain, and refill yours.

Mum, I’ve included a present for you as well! I went to the bookstore in town, and bought a copy of a book one of the others here at the research station lent me. It’s about how to knit magical objects (or what they call “magical focuses” here). Darius, the one who lent me the book, knitted things called chameleon amulets from a pattern in there, and they make you invisible, just as well as Harry’s Cloak does! I’ve been working on making one of my own, but the last two tries I had to ravel it and start over, because all it did when I put it on was make me very blurry, so that I gave anyone who looked at me a headache! I’m getting the knack of it, though. And yes, it’s safe: if I did it wrong, it just wouldn’t work. It wouldn’t explode or anything.

I heard you were worried about me getting enough to eat. No need to worry about that! The station cook (or, really, station chef would be more accurate) is a Brownie; I’ve been told that “house elf” is actually an offensive term, and I can see how it would be. I’ve been making a serious effort never to say it. Hermione would really approve of how Texans treat the Brownies. Anyway, he’s a genius. If anything, I’ll need to diet once I get back to England! Next time, I should send you a Texan cookery book. It will change your culinary life.

I hope you both can come and visit me sometime soon! Dad, especially, would love it here. Maybe he could get a cowboy hat.

Talk to you soon!

Love,  
Charlie

*****

Senior Agent Harry James Potter  
Duellist Training Department  
Auror Training College  
Riggs Moor  
Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom

Dear Harry,

Thank you and Ginny so much for the Harpies gear! I fully expect England to go to the World Cup again, and with her playing it will no doubt be a remarkably short game! (With England triumphant, obviously.) I will wear the jumper with great pride and make the Yankees give due respect.

By the way, did you know that Texans don’t really follow Quidditch _or_ Quodpot much? Instead, everyone (Muggle or Magical, it doesn’t actually seem to matter) follows football, especially college football, an entirely Muggle game! There have actually been a couple of scandals over teams cheating by using magic.

It isn’t the same as European football. In Texan football, players hardly ever kick the ball; nearly everything happens from throwing it, which doesn’t make a bit of sense to me, but I’ve learned that it is not wise for the Brit to question football. Football is sacrosanct, and when there’s a game I have to pretty much give up on anyone getting anything accomplished other than eating salty snacks and drinking beer and cheering at the telly as men in brightly-coloured armour attack each other. I understand it’s a bit like rugby, but I haven’t really figured out all the rules; there seems to be a whole foreign vocabulary to learn. Flags and downs and touchdowns and touchbacks and punts and field goals and I don’t even know what all. It does seem like a pretty superb way to burn off aggression, though. I was feeling very frustrated one day, and the station had a football match (only I don’t think they call them matches usually), and I can’t even tell you how cathartic it was. Smacking a bludger at someone just isn’t quite the same. Maybe you and Malfoy would have become friends sooner if you could have just spent an afternoon tackling each other once in a while.

Anyway, that wasn’t actually what I was writing about. The other day, a Muggle family came to the station for help from our station Healer (or station medic, as she’s called here), Mariposa. That's something that can happen in Texas, as Texas has never signed on to the Statute of Secrecy, and Texans tend to regard it with a kind of bemused, slightly condescending bafflement. Anyway, this family brought their daughter to Mariposa, because she’d been attacked with a curse that gave her a magical illness called _susto_. It sounds like a pretty horrible thing: fear and nightmares and jumpiness and not being able to eat or sleep. Mariposa treated her, and when I saw her leave she was actually skipping.

I asked Mariposa what she did, and I had never heard of anything like it: she used a raw egg and a bundle of dried herbs and a compass and a very specific wand made out of a very specific kind of palm wood from South America. She didn’t use any potions; she mixed up dried ingredients and gave those to the parents, to be steeped at home, and used to make a kind of hot herbal bath.

I’ve never heard of the Healers at St Mungo’s doing anything even remotely similar. But here’s the thing, Harry: _it worked_. I don’t imagine it would surprise anyone that mental health care in Magical England is not ideal, but I hadn’t fully realized _how much_ it lags. How many people were having those same symptoms (nightmares, fear, jumpiness, inability to eat or sleep) after the war, and no one really knew what to do beyond the general application of Cheering Charms? Unless you were physically injured, St Mungo’s didn’t have much that would help. Honestly, I think George’s Trauma Truffles did more good than anything else I know of: to cope with his own trauma, and all of ours, he had to create some kind of solution _himself_! I keep a box of them in my field case or beside my bed at all times, to this day, because nothing else helps as much.

But in Texas, even if the trauma is the result of an actual traumatic experience (rather than a curse), they have ways to deal with it, to treat it. Mariposa told me that even when there’s no magical problem at all, a _plática_ session (which I gather just consists of her talking with the patient) can often help bring healing. Plus, even the Muggles have also figured out a lot about how people’s minds work, and how people can cope with non-physical problems like that, without using magic at all; I know the “stitches” that Dad used during the war didn’t help much, since it was a magical injury, but in this instance the Muggles may have it right.

Mariposa’s system is called _curanderismo_ , if you want to look into it, or get any of your contacts at St Mungo’s to look into it. I can put you in contact with Mariposa, too, if you want. I really think it would be worth doing.

There’s this, too. Just on the possibility, I asked Mariposa what she thought about Neville’s parents, since St Mungo’s hasn’t really been able to do much for them except keep them comfortable physically. She thought about it, then said it sounded like something she knew of: something called “soul loss”, a very severe form of _susto_. Maybe don’t get Neville’s hopes up yet, but this is at least a new avenue to explore.

Tell Ginny good luck in her match next week!

Love,  
Charlie

*****

Luna, Rolf, Lysander, and Lorcan Scamander  
Skķgarhögg House  
Egilsstaðir  
Eastern Region, Iceland

Dear all,

I hope you have been having fun in Iceland and staying warm! Have you been to the hot springs yet? They must be wonderful in the wintertime.

More importantly, have you found the Lagarfljót Worm yet? If so, which of us is right, Luna? Is it a new species of kelpie like you think, or a new freshwater species of sea serpent like I think? Or something totally different, like Rolf thinks? I need to know; five galleons are on the line!

I’ve enclosed some good pictures of the creatures that live around here. There’s a huge tepetl and her calf, and she’s about to have a brand-new calf any time! I’ll try to send you a picture of the new baby tepetl when I can. I also got a couple of good pictures of a herd of jackalopes; those are Texas’s national animal, and there are so many of them around here! I also took some pictures of nonmagical animals that are pretty great too: pronghorns, a rattlesnake, jackrabbits, an armadillo, and a horny toad. (Don’t snicker! They’re really called horny toads. I didn’t believe it at first, so I looked it up, and it’s really true! I can’t help it. They’re just called that.)

I also sent lots of pictures of the ruby-winged draclet I’ve been watching. He’s a male, and lately he’s been bustling around making a nest; probably he’s hoping to impress a lady draclet later. He collects anything shiny he finds, and he’s been piling it up in the very centre of a huge clump of prickly pear cactus; I sent a picture of the prickly pear, or you wouldn’t have believed me when I told you how big it was! I transfigured a few pebbles so they were very shiny, and scattered them around to see what he would do; he snatched them all up straight away, and they’re carefully arranged in the nest now. I’m cheering for him. I hope he gets the best girlfriend.

Boys, I’ve enclosed a present for you! It’s a book called _Johnny Jackrabbit_ , and it’s about a jackrabbit being a detective for all the interesting creatures on the prairies around here. I hope you’ll like it; if you do, there’s a whole series. Did you know that your mum’s patronus is a hare, and jackrabbits are a kind of hare? At first I thought they were rabbits (because they’re called _jackrabbits_ ), but no: they’re actually hares.

I hope to hear from you soon! (I still think it’s a sea serpent, in case you were wondering.)

Love,  
Uncle Charlie


	9. Charlie Gets One Surprise After Another

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bad guy is caught, and Charlie makes a faux pas.

Charlie was awakened from a dead sleep by the station bell. He flailed his arms in a pointless fashion, under the vague (but very well-conditioned) impression that he was about to be the subject of some sort of prank. Like all of his siblings, he had been trained from the twins’ early youth to be prepared at any moment to wake up, leap out of bed, and cope with a dungbomb or a bunch of fireworks or half a dozen drunk garden gnomes. He threw off the quilt and had his socked feet on the floor almost before he had his eyes properly open.

The same pleasant voice he had heard announce the arrival of the Muggles last week spoke out of the air again. “Attention,” it said. “An intruder is entering the station.”

A bolt of adrenaline cleared most of the fuzziness out of Charlie’s head. He caught up his wand, slipped across to the door, and eased it open, craning to look out without exposing himself to attack. After a moment, he spied a human-shaped shadow slipping down the curving stairway and entering the courtyard, and though the moon was bright, the figure was in deep shadow; a concealment or darkness spell of some sort. Charlie readied his wand, hating a little how quickly and easily all his combat magic came back.

He didn’t get any farther than that. A door swung open, with no effort at concealment, and the small, wiry figure of Mariposa strode out. She didn’t even seem to have her wand in her hand, and Charlie shifted gears mentally, assuming he would have to protect her. He stepped outside.

“You,” hissed the shadow. “You’re the one who cured that Mexican brat, and set the police on me.”

Mariposa made a low growling sound. It normally was weird when a person growled, because human throats weren’t really made for it, but this time it was different. Mariposa’s growl didn’t even really sound human, and Charlie felt a chill.

“Yes, I am,” she said in a low voice, and then, as the intruder started to raise his wand, she lunged. She didn’t run at him, but actually lunged, leaping flat out with her full body. And in the moment she was in the air, her body changed. It was too fast to really see: he had a vague impression of shapes shifting, of a body stretching out longer, of fur and spots washed colorless by the moonlight, and then a huge feline form rammed the man and knocked him flat in a sprawl, sending his wand clattering out of his hand and out of reach. Charlie saw the gleam of long white teeth, saw ears flattened in fury, and heard the growl rise into a ferocious snarl. She pinned the man’s shoulders to the tiles with her heavy forepaws, and Charlie could see the tips of razor-sharp claws beginning to extend.

A jaguar, he thought, frozen in shock. She turned into a jaguar.

Charlie was so stunned by the unexpected appearance of a jaguar in the station, that he hadn’t even noticed Parker walking out into the courtyard. He only registered the other man’s presence when he walked over and picked up the intruder’s discarded wand, holding it gingerly between his fingers, as if it had a nasty residue on it.

“I’ll get the police here,” Parker said. The jaguar, previously Mariposa, looked up at him briefly in acknowledgement, then returned her attention to the intruder.

Parker opened the front flap of the small, densely-beaded square leather bag he always wore on a cord around his neck. From it, he drew out a long feather with a dark tip; the bag itself was much smaller than the feather, and Charlie realized there must be some sort of undetectable extending charm on it. Parker rested the feather lengthwise over his hand, with the quill resting on his wrist and the tip extending beyond his fingers; then, he gently blew along it. A curl of silver vapor wafted off the end of the feather, and coalesced into Parker’s patronus: a pronghorn. It stood by, alert, ears pricked, waiting.

“Go to the magical police station in Lubbock,” he told it. “Tell them to come to the Juan Seguin Magifauna Research Station immediately, to pick up the perp in the Orta susto case. We already have him subdued.” Parker paused, then added “Tell them that from what he said, it may have been a hate crime.”

The silver pronghorn wheeled around, and galloped off in a blur of silver too fast to follow.

Charlie had just been standing uselessly in his doorway. Now he shook himself back to reality, and stepped forward himself. “I can restrain him, if you want,” he offered.

Mariposa looked up, and then stepped back off the intruder just enough to get clear, but still close enough to pounce on him again if need be.

Charlie flicked his wand. “ _Incarcero_.” Ropes whipped out and snaked around the man, holding him secure. When that was done, the jaguar stretched up, shifted, reshaped, and stood up as the human woman again.

A moment passed, and no one said anything. The man on the ground seemed to be trying to, but a loop of the rope had crossed his mouth, and all he could do was make indistinct angry noises against it.

All at once, there came a series of loud _snaps_ across the courtyard, and three uniformed officers from the magical police Apparated into view. They moved quickly and efficiently: one took custody of the man, and whisked him back to the police station immediately. The other two collected Charlie, Parker, and Mariposa’s eyewitness memories of the event, depositing them carefully into three labeled evidence bottles, and then took possession of the intruder’s wand, wrapping it up and tucking it into a magic-proofed evidence bag.

As the policemen and the three magizoologists were having a few quick words before the former departed, the door of the dining hall abruptly swung open, and out floated a procession of two steaming cups and one small vacuum flask. A cup presented itself to each of the two policemen; they turned out to contain hot, foamy Turkish coffee, spiced with cardamom. Evidently Cookie had decided that they deserved to have this treat, after coming in the middle of the night (what time was it, actually? Charlie didn’t even know) to collect the creep who had cursed the little girl. Cookie had even provided the same for the third officer, preparing it in a vacuum flask for transport.

The two officers sipped their coffee appreciatively, then were on their way, taking the vacuum flask along for their partner.

When they had gone, Charlie turned to Mariposa. “You’re an animagus!” he said excitedly. “I’ve always wanted to become one, but it just takes so much time; one of these years I’ll go through the process. How long have you been one?”

She smiled a little. “I’m actually not an animagus, exactly. I’m a _nahual_. I was born with it; everyone in my family can turn into a jaguar at night.”

Charlie was surprised; he had never heard of a hereditary ability to turn into a specific, predictable animal at will, but only at night. That was fascinating! “I didn’t know that was something that existed! A _nahual_? Is that like a skinwalker?”

The reactions of both Mariposa and Parker shocked him. They both flinched, and Parker actually took a full step back. “No!” they both snapped, and Charlie was reminded forcibly of the people who hadn’t wanted to say “Voldemort” back in the years leading up to the war. He was confused. “I didn’t mean—”

“Come with me,” said Mariposa, heading for the workroom. “I’m going to need a cup of coffee for this one.”

“But—” Charlie rushed to catch up. “I know England has a reputation for being prejudiced against werewolves and vampires and so on, but we’re trying to change that! The old laws on the books have nearly all been repealed, and we’re working on getting rid of the rest of them, and there’s an endowed professorship at Hogwarts named after a werewolf who taught there and was practically part of my family—”

“They’re not the same thing as werewolves, at all,” Mariposa said. She went into the workroom and started the coffee pot brewing, and went on talking without looking back at Charlie. “ _Nahuales_ are born with the power to transform; werewolves have it involuntarily inflicted on them. But they choose to make themselves into what they are.” She paused, and seemed to have to force herself to say the word. “Skinwalkers, I mean.”

Charlie said nothing (wishing a bit that he had started saying nothing quite a while ago; clearly he had made some terribly offensive comment, though he still wasn’t sure exactly what it was), and accepted the mug of coffee Mariposa offered.

“I know Britain has been extending rights and respect to werewolves,” she said at last. “I know that, and it’s good and important. But the problem is. . .” She paused to sip her coffee. “The problem is that activists, with the best intentions in the world, are trying to extend the same thing to. . .to skinwalkers, without really understanding at all what being one actually means.”

Charlie could learn. He said nothing.

“Are you familiar with horcruxes?” Mariposa asked unexpectedly.

“Wha—er, yes, yes a bit.”

“So you know that the problem with horcruxes isn’t a person wanting to safeguard his or her life. That’s fine. The problem is what you have to do, the evil magic you have to perform, in order to make it happen that way. You see?”

Charlie nodded.

“Becoming a. . .skinwalker. . .is the same way. They’re incredibly powerful: they can transform at will into any creature they want, even other people. And there’s nothing wrong with that, specifically. The problem is what they have to do to get that power. A person who has it, only has it because they did something that no one should ever, ever do.”

Charlie felt cold, even though it was warm in the room. He wrapped his hands around his warm mug.

Mariposa sipped her coffee slowly, apparently thinking through how much detail to give. “Becoming one is a very complex piece of magic,” she said at last. “And it’s blood magic. Just like with horcruxes, you have to kill someone. But with a horcrux it can be anybody; to become. . .a skinwalker. . .to become that, it has to be someone you share blood with. A relative. The closer the better.” She paused again. “You have to kill a close relative, a parent, a sibling, a child, in order to perform the magic to become a skinwalker. So it’s not. . .it’s not ever something that a person can’t help, or that a person is born with, or that a person didn’t want.”

Charlie sat frozen, horrified. In England he had heard people talk about skinwalkers, and accuse Americans and Texans of being bigots and backward for ‘persecuting’ them. Clearly, they had no idea what being a skinwalker actually meant, and consequently Charlie hadn’t known either.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, and he meant it. “I didn’t. . .people in England don’t have any idea that’s what it means. I’m really sorry.”

Mariposa gave him a small smile. “I know,” she said, and with a tap of her wand she reheated the coffee that Charlie had forgotten to drink. “I know you didn’t mean anything bad, and honestly, I’d rather you gave undue credit to bad people, instead of what that. . .” She seemed at a loss for a sufficient word. “That man tonight did. You didn’t know what it meant when you said it. It was a mistake. That man. . .when he cursed an innocent little girl just because of her heritage, he knew exactly what he was doing.”

“Yeah,” Charlie said, drinking his coffee. Then he added with feeling: “ _Bastard_.”

She clinked her mug against his. “That he is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Parker is Comanche, if you were wondering.
> 
> Many Native American cultures traditionally and historically have used medicine bags or medicine bundles as sort of magical and/or spiritual toolkits. In my version of things here, I picture them being used by Muggles as well as Magicals, because an object or magical focus can be created that does its job whether its user has magic or not. An example might be the stone Crazy Horse was given, which was to protect him from bullets.
> 
> Here’s a picture of a Comanche medicine bag, if you’re interested: http://fortphantom.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Comanche-Medicine-Bag-1880s1.png
> 
> Parker uses a golden eagle feather to summon his patronus. Eagles have a lot of major symbolic meanings for different Native American groups, and one of the symbolisms is for prayer. It makes sense to me that, if a person has earned an eagle feather (they have to be earned), it would be used to summon his or her personal protector and messenger.


	10. The Domestic Life of the Texas Ruby-Winged Draclet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dragonology happens.

Charlie sat on his flying rug, the rug hidden by the disillusionment charm he had refreshed that morning, and hidden himself by means of the chameleon amulet he had finally succeeded in knitting, and watched the male ruby-winged draclet through his omniculars. The draclet had completed the embellishment of his nest several days ago, and ever since then, he had spent several hours each day puffing out his chest and producing a quite surprisingly loud booming call, presumably to inform female draclets of his presence and eligibility. He had also meticulously scrubbed and polished his skin with sand, until it gleamed brightly, advertising his prime healthiness and fatherly suitability to any females he might attract.

Charlie had observed all of this behavior, and had also taken recordings of it on his omniculars. And today, at last, a female draclet had arrived to allow the male to try to impress her.

She was duller in color: an earthy russet, rather than the jewel-toned red. She also lacked the flamboyant fan on the end of her tail, and the delicate crest on her head was much smaller. The colors and the various embellishments, then, must be specifically male characteristics, and intended for display to potential mates, Charlie concluded, and noted down the observation in his notebook.

He picked up his omniculars again, and started recording just as the male draclet went into full display mode. He puffed himself up, ruffled his wings until they rattled, whipped his tail fan back and forth to catch the sun, and strutted with all his might in a circle around his potential mate. He made a series of loud squawks, arched his neck, sent little licks of flame spouting into the air, and generally invited the female to behold all his magnificence.

She, meanwhile, was pointedly unimpressed. She turned over a small stone with her forepaw, and peeked underneath it, looking for a scorpion or beetle for a snack. She licked her shoulder, giving this ablution her full concentration. Undeterred, the male pranced and flounced his tail and rattled his wings more forcefully than ever, continuing to produce neat little jets of flame for her appreciation.

Eventually she consented to acknowledge his existence. Encouraged by this, and still strutting and prancing with all his might and puffing his chest in the most impressive fashion, the male draclet enticed her into the center of the clump of prickly pear, that she might behold the fruits of his exemplary nest-building labors. Charlie carefully maneuvered his rug at a better angle, and switched a few settings on the omniculars to filter out the spiny plant, allowing him to continue to observe.

***

Having been duly impressed by the male draclet’s display of masculine perfection and domestic skill, the female consented to occupy his admirable nest. Over the next few days, Charlie observed her laying a clutch of five rusty-brown, spherical eggs with white speckling, and then tucking her warm body protectively around them. Her mate dutifully brought her a selection of small birds, mice, insects, and on one impressive occasion, a prairie dog almost too big for him to lift.

***

Two weeks after the eggs were laid, a slender gray fox came trotting around the clump of prickly pear; presumably, from what Charlie knew of them, hunting the cottontail rabbits that often sheltered there. He began to record the interaction, as the fox approached the draclet nest curiously; the parent draclets, however, were taking no chances with this intruder. They both reared up on their haunches, showing their sharp claws and teeth, and made loud, threatening screeches. The fox hesitated, but did not leave. At that, both draclets shot thin jets of flame at it, and the fox decided to slink off in pursuit of easier prey.

***

Thirty-six days after the eggs were laid, they started to hatch. Two tiny, damp, mottled-russet draclet chicks were already flopping weakly around the nest by the time Charlie arrived, and a third had just broken its snout through its shell. He watched, entranced, through his omniculars’ most magnified setting, as the tiny snout, adorned at the tip with a white egg tooth, pushed further through the hole it had made. A moment later, a minute paw cracked through the shell in another place, scrabbling at the smooth surface with soft new claws. The father draclet purred and chirped encouragingly, while the mother washed the two chicks that had already hatched with her tongue, tucking them safely along her body.

***

After two weeks, the draclet chicks had enough coordination to begin to bounce around the nest and play, pouncing on their parents and each other, chasing beetles and lizards (which they rarely caught), and wrestling. Not long after that, they were permitted to venture outside the clump of prickly pear, where they could play under the careful supervision of one or both of their parents. When they were about a month old, they began to spend a great deal of time stretching out their spindly, tissue-thin, translucent wings, and flapping them as hard as they could to build strength. A week or two after that, they took their first awkward, wobbling, but triumphant flights.

***

The parent draclets had fed their chicks regurgited meat at first, as birds did (and, Charlie knew, as much larger dragon species did, too). Soon they progressed to small bits of mouse or lizard, then whole killed ones. Finally, the chicks were brought live mice and lizards and insects, and their parents taught them carefully how to deal with living prey. By that time, the chicks’ mottled colors were beginning to fade into the ruby and russet shades of adults, and Charlie had many hours of footage recorded, many pages of notes written, and plenty of moving photographs. He was beginning to think about the shape future articles might take, or even a book; he had enough material to completely change magizoology’s knowledge about draclets.

***

By late summer, the draclet chicks weren’t really chicks any more. They were easily catching their own food, and taking flights farther and farther afield; by the beginning of autumn, the family had dispersed. Charlie was sad to see them go. He had, however, carefully tagged both parents and all of the chicks with a special spell anchored to their bodies, which would allow him to track them if he, or another dragonologist, decided to do so.

He had been sending regular updates to Luna and her family, and the boys had promptly named all the chicks. Which, Charlie supposed, was perfectly legitimate, and he continued to use those names in his notes.

Luna informed him, with great regret that was actually smugness, that they had now positively identified the Lagarfljót Worm as a previously undescribed kelpie species. Charlie dutifully sent the wagered five galleons along in his next letter, along with the cutest draclet chick memes (mostly created by Andrew).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the draclet’s mating dance, I was picturing the mating dance of the grackles I see every spring. This is what it looks like: https://youtu.be/fj1cqIXJz6E.
> 
> For the draclet chicks, I was imagining kind of a combination of baby birds, kittens, and baby bats (which, adorably, are called pups, if you didn’t know).


End file.
